Great America owners want Santa Clara to renegotiate lease

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A marquee along Highway 101 reads "Future Home of the 49ers" in this 2006 file photo.

This is an elevated view of a parking lot in Santa Clara, Calif., Wednesday, April 25, 2007, where the San Francisco 49ers plan to build a new NFL football stadium. The 49ers estimate the team will need $160 million in public money to help finance a new $854 million stadium, according to a report delivered Tuesday to the Santa Clara City Council. At upper right is the Great America Amusement Park. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Artist rendering of the proposed 49ers stadium in Santa Clara. The planwould include extra-wide plazas and concourses, solar panels and a "green roof" made of living plants, and one of the largest lower-seating bowls in the NFL. Courtesy of San Francisco 49ers.

The corporate owners of Great America theme park have once again unleashed their lawyers on the proposed San Francisco 49ers stadium project in Santa Clara.

In a letter to city officials sent this week, Cedar Fair Entertainment, the park’s owners, say that continuing negotiations with the city and team should include the prospect of renegotiating Great America’s long-running lease with Santa Clara, which provides for a minimum rent of at least $5 million per year.

Cedar is demanding that the lease be altered to eliminate the minimum rent and replace it with a performance-based formula that would take into account any negative effects from an NFL stadium, such as being forced to close on game days. The proposed 68,500-seat stadium would be built on a parking lot adjacent to the theme park.

“If the city wishes to change the circumstances of Great America and take a gamble on an NFL stadium, then the city must be prepared to accept some of the risk that the revenues and profitability of Great America will be reduced,” Cedar Fair attorney Geoffrey Etnire wrote in the letter.

City officials have depicted Cedar Fair’s legal threats as attempts to cut a better deal with Santa Clara and improve its negotiating posture with the 49ers in the event the team decides to buy the park down the line. Mayor Patricia Mahan on Friday called the latest letter a “rehash,” although she said it “reveals the intention all along to try to get a rent reduction.”

Asked whether the city would consider reducing Great America’s rent, Mahan replied: “No. We have a contract. A contract is a contract.”

Cedar Fair officials are expected to meet with city and team officials Tuesday for their latest round of negotiations. The park’s owners have already filed two lawsuits over the stadium deal, including one earlier this month challenging the environmental impact report on the project.

Lisa Lang, spokeswoman for the 49ers, called the timing of the letter “strange,” given the planned meeting next week to discuss ways for a stadium to coexist with the park.

“We continue to be at a complete loss as to why Cedar Fair is taking such a negative position,” she said.

Santa Clara residents are slated to vote June 8 on Measure J, which would approve construction of the $937 million stadium, including a package of $114 million in public contributions.